The deep ball is not Brady's forte. He'll hit them on occasion but he's never done that on a consistent basis.... l lot of his passing yardage comes from YAC. Hartline gives Brady another big target ala Gronkowski. I say get him.

I doubt the Dolphins let him walk, they have cap space and the guy is young. He gets hurt a lot and misses time/games...even this year he was hurt before the season started. He's only had one good year statistically, but he's played with some bad quaterbacks.

I like how big he is and I've got to think he'd put up numbers here with Brady throwing it to him. The only thing I do know is that we can't give Welker a big contract...not at his age...and not for a guy that is going to drop some of the most important passes of the season. I don't care how many balls he catches during the regular season - over the last three playoff games he has 6 drops. Two of them had a hand in losing the game for us...one of them cost us a Super Bowl. I love Welker, but I think it's obvious he is not worth anything over what the Patriots were offering last off season. I really hope he goes somewhere and continues to catch 100 balls a year, however I know that in the playoffs...in the cold..or with tighter coverage...he won't come through. And that's fine, he's still a great player.

I say we sign one of these smart possesion types for lower money and then try to find a fast, big wide reciever we can send mindlessly down the field four or five times a game in the draft. With a little luck the big, fast, younger guy will get better. At the very least it will force Brady to look elsewhere, rather than just eyeing Welker all game. Don't forget we still have Hern and Gronk that will be center field options too.

The deep ball is not Brady's forte. He'll hit them on occasion but he's never done that on a consistent basis.... l lot of his passing yardage comes from YAC. Hartline gives Brady another big target ala Gronkowski. I say get him.

Hmmmmm.......would the season of 2007 have any significants here.......

Id take hartline in a heartbeat, if welker leaves, as a wes replacment.

But i think that we have more of a need for a true deep threat than wes or a wes replacement.

I completely disagree on Brady not being good at the deep ball. The one year (07) that he had a couple true deep threats (stallworth and moss) he was stellar at it.

IMO, we dont need wes back. Ballard and Gronk can be our 2 TE in our 2 TE sets, and hernandez and edelman can take over wes' slot duties.

Lets spend the money we would spend on Wes and sign a hard hitting Rodney Harrison type safety which is what we have been lacking more than anything defensively the past few years.

Hartline as Wes replacement? Hartline doesn't have the same route tree has Wes, are you just assuming he can replace Wes because they're both white WRs?

Brady's deep ball is just okay, he was stellar in '07 because he had the greatest deep threat of all time. Moss even made Culpepper look like an all pro QB.

Edelman is best suited to replace Wes if he can stay heathly. Hern can play slot too, he's not as quick as Wes though. If they use Hern as the slot man, we will probably see a completely different Patriots offense next season...which could be for good or for bad.

Guys, there are black WRs in the NFL too...and some of them are pretty good. What's with the affectation for white WRs? Amendola, Hartline, Collie...you guys want them all, but they all do the same thing. Possesion WRs with limited speed, call me when Jordy Nelson comes knocking. In an ideal world, I'd love to have Mike Wallace come through the door, but I doubt that'll happen.

Maybe a WR corps with Lloyd, Hernandez, Stallworth, Edelman and (Maybe) Amendola is good enough. I'd rather take the 8-12 million the Patriots will offer Welker and put it into the defense.

Guys, there are black WRs in the NFL too...and some of them are pretty good. What's with the affectation for white WRs? Amendola, Hartline, Collie...you guys want them all, but they all do the same thing. Possesion WRs with limited speed, call me when Jordy Nelson comes knocking. In an ideal world, I'd love to have Mike Wallace come through the door, but I doubt that'll happen.

Maybe a WR corps with Lloyd, Hernandez, Stallworth, Edelman and (Maybe) Amendola is good enough. I'd rather take the 8-12 million the Patriots will offer Welker and put it into the defense.

Are you seriously bringing race into this?

I'd rather put Brady under center and run more traditional sets vs watch him look for two of his most obvious options inside the hashes over and over.

Yes, I am. I don't think it's a malicious thing where most of the guys on this board only want white WRs, but...well, a white WR is always on the top of the priority list. I get it, it's Boston, we're always looking for Larry Bird, but there are better talent out there.